After Second Mistake, Tyler Olander Needs To Smarten Up

The first time he was a college kid on spring break acting like a stupid college kid on spring break. The second time it is more.

After examining the available facts surrounding Tyler Olander's second arrest in six months last Saturday night, it's fairly simple and altogether profound to insist Olander needs to stop acting like a dope.

So we'll say it up front. Tyler, stop acting like a dope and grasp the consequences of your actions before you again embarrass yourself, your family and your school. Or else?

Or else the 6-9 starting senior post player doesn't deserve to walk another step in the sneakers that so many young kids around the state would so love to wear.

Having said that, there are some mitigating facts in this latest case that should stop people from rushing too fast and too hard to absolutes.

Olander, 21, was suspended indefinitely for violating team rules after he was pulled over by police on Route 195 and charged with operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol/drugs; operating an unregistered motor vehicle; and driving without a license. According to the report by state police in Tolland, Olander was arrested after failing standardized field sobriety tests. According to our sources, Olander was driving a friend's car.

In field tests, the officer makes judgments on the driver's appearance, ability to take directions, etc. There are tests like the walk-and-turn, walking heel to toe, in a straight line, and turning. There's the one-leg stand. There's the horizontal gaze nystagmus test — following the officer's finger or pen with your eyes.

That is what Olander failed. According to multiple sources close to the situation, however, Olander then passed the Breathalyzer test at the station. In Connecticut you are legally intoxicated if you have a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.08 or higher. Yet according to state law, if a person's ability to drive is affected by alcohol or drugs to an appreciable degree, the offense also may be prosecuted without direct evidence of a person's BAC.

So it will be interesting to see how this gray area plays out when Olander has his first date on Sept. 23 at Superior Court in Rockville. Anybody who has read this space over the years has seen me rail against the evils of drunk driving. Yet it is important, if we are to understand the fuller picture, to know that Olander didn't punch out some menacingly stupid 0.17 BAC. In fact, the Breathalyzer, according to sources, showed he wasn't legally drunk.

According to a source, Olander's friend was in the car with him and Olander could have taken over as sort of a designated driver. If so, that would qualify as a well-intentioned act of stupidity. As it stands the vehicle was unregistered and Connecticut law says the driver is culpable even if he isn't the owner. Let's be honest. How many times in your life have you driven a car for a friend and remembered to ask if his car is registered and fully insured? Still, the law is the law.

As for Olander's telling the officer, according to our sources, that he doesn't have a driver's license? Not a suspended license — no license. A 21-year-old adult from Mansfield in 2013 without a driver's license? That is baffling. It certainly speaks to awful judgment to get behind the wheel in the first place.

There appears to be plenty of that with Olander. He was arrested on trespassing charges in Panama City, Fla., in March for refusing to leave Lakewood Wharf resort after he was asked by security staff and then by a sheriff's deputy. He did not have a wrist band required to be within the gated property. Olander told Dave Borges of the New Haven Register that his girlfriend was there, he wanted to be with her, but it was past the allowed hour.

Here's the thing, Tyler. At a certain point, before they slap the cuffs on you, you have to know when to shut up and leave. And when you're still recovering from foot surgery and your coaches didn't want you to go to Florida in the first place, well, don't be a dope.

"You have concerns," Ollie told our Dom Amore in April. "I know he sat down with his parents — I'm not his parents, I'm his coach — and he made a decision that he wanted to go to spring break with some of his teammates. Unfortunately, he put himself in a bad situation and I think he has learned from it, grown from it and is going to be a better person from it."

Olander paid the $280 fine. He performed community service. He didn't learn from it. He was thrown out of the UConn locker room and barred from team activities for a month. Ollie took away his captaincy with a chance to win it back. He didn't grow from it. This much we know. You'll never read the word captain in front of Tyler Olander again.